Buongiorno and Ulm to collaborate on $1.9M DOE grant to accelerate advanced nuclear technology development

MITEI researchers Jacopo Buongiorno and Franz-Josef Ulm will begin working on the DOE-funded project on nuclear technology

Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 23, 2018

Jacopo Buongiorno, TEPCO Professor and associate department head of nuclear science and engineering and Franz-Josef Ulm, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering will collaborate with Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Exelon Generation, and Bechtel on advanced nuclear technologies.

The project is led by GE Hitachi (GEH) and funded by a $1.9M grant from the DOE. The focus —accelerating domestic advanced nuclear technology. Specifically, the team will examine ways to simplify the reactor design, reduce plant construction costs, and lower operations and maintenance costs for a small modular reactor (SMR)— the GEH BWRX-300.

“It’s an imperative of the nuclear industry to reduce the cost of deploying new plants,” said Buongiorno. “Our plan is to design a new small modular nuclear reactor that adopts advanced concrete solutions and innovative construction techniques, which are expected to drastically cut its cost and schedule, and make it competitive with natural gas combined cycle power plants.”

This is the second group of awards granted by the DOE for domestic advanced nuclear technology projects. The awards are “examples of the private-public partnerships needed to help successfully develop innovative domestic nuclear technologies. The projects will allow industry-led teams, which include participants from federal agencies, public and private laboratories, institutions of higher education, and other domestic entities, to advance the state of U.S. commercial nuclear capability.”